She hesitated. “No. I’ve already caused enough problems for Luc.”
“Do you want to call someone else? Your parents?”
“No. My parents would just worry.”
“All right. Let’s get your things together, then.”
She kept staring around the room. “I should clean up.”
“Not right now.” He made a mental note to have Sheila send someone over to do the dirty work and salvage anything that could be salvaged. It was the least he could do.
Since Natalie made no move to pack anything, he grabbed a few things for her. A dress, some tights, underwear, socks, a couple of sweaters and some jeans. Comfortable-looking sneakers. Some toiletries out of the bathroom. He threw them all on top of the fabric scraps and sewing supplies in the quilted bag she’d had with her in the car.
“Okay, sweetheart,” he said, putting his arm around her again. “Let’s go.”
There was a fat ticket on his rental car’s windshield, which he’d fully expected. There was also a tow truck turning the corner down the street. Why did he have a feeling that it was headed straight for his vehicle? McDougal bundled Natalie into the passenger side and vaulted into the driver’s seat. He fumbled the keys into the ignition. They peeled away with the tow truck less than fifteen yards back. At least something in this miserable day had gone right.
Natalie was a little bemused to be back in McDougal’s hotel room at the ritzy Waldorf, a place where she couldn’t even afford the drinks. And had she really only met Eric last night? It seemed impossible.
Then again, it seemed equally unreal that everything she owned had been overturned, slashed, destroyed. The furniture was replaceable. Her work was not.
A hard pulse of outrage, violation, and panic kicked up under her sternum. Her face flushed and her palms dampened as she thought about rough men invading her space, going through her private things, grunting with enjoyment as they kicked over plants she’d nurtured and ripped apart books she’d loved and shredded wall hangings that she’d created in the name of beauty.
She went into the elegant marble bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror, expecting a drastic change that reflected how she felt. But the same old Natalie gazed back, albeit one with circles under her eyes and a hunted look in them.
She turned on the taps at the sink full blast and splashed water onto her face until the heat receded, and her emotions with it. She commandeered Eric’s Aquafresh toothpaste tube, hoping the minty gel would take the bad taste out of her mouth.
Finally she emerged from the bathroom to find him sprawled shirtless on the bed, looking like the poster child for hedonism.
She just looked—and felt—bedraggled. He must have agreed with that assessment, because he eyed her with clear sympathy. “C’mere, sweetheart,” he said, patting the spot next to him.
She went because her mind was empty of any alternatives, and he was sexy and warm and she needed his body heat, his energy, and his arms around her. The arms of a stranger . . . It didn’t make sense.
But she went anyway and lay down next to him. He encircled her with his arms, and for the first time that day she felt safe. As if she could breathe normally again. Her world was still off its axis, but at least she could stop hyperventilating.
They lay there like that until she was drowsy, almost asleep. Then he said something odd. “Am I doing this right?”
She rolled to face him. “Doing what right?”
He seemed uncomfortable. “Never mind.”
“Doing what right, Eric?”
He fidgeted. “Uh . . . holding you?”
Was that an actual blush seeping around the freckles on his face?
“Because, well, it’s not really . . . my thing.”
She just blinked at him. “Your thing,” she repeated.
He actually squirmed. “You know. Holding women.”
Natalie bit her lip at his discomfort. “You’re doing fine,” she assured him. Then she rolled so that her back was to him again and made a wry face at the wall.
Emotionally handicapped, just like her father. And mother, for that matter—both of them related to books better than people.
Well, at least Eric was honest about it, unlike her last boyfriend. Nels, the liar, had told her that he was in a PhD program for physics—when all he did was work in the university library.
He was the latest in a long string of disappointments—men who didn’t remotely live up to her ideals. Still, she refused to give up. Somewhere out there was a hero with her name on his lips. Somewhere. But probably not here.
Yet Eric put his arms around her again, even though his body was stiff behind her.
She waited a minute or two, but he didn’t relax. This was sweet but almost comical. “Eric?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you going into rigor mortis?”
He chuckled weakly. “Wow, I really am bad at this.”
“No, but it’s clear that you’re outside your comfort zone.”
“What can I say? I’m a better smart-ass than a teddy bear.”
Natalie rolled to face him once more. She reached out gently and touched his cheek. Then she shook her head and said gravely, “I don’t want to ruin your image of yourself, big guy, but you’ve got some hidden teddy tendencies.”
He assumed an expression of mock horror. “Latent teddy-bearism? No! Impossible.”
She nodded. “You’ll have to come out of the closet eventually, so you may as well practice.”
Eric eyed her quizzically. “I’ve never had a woman phrase it quite like that. Usually they just call me an asshole and storm out. Or do worse.” His expression darkened for a moment. “Like spray paint my Ninja pink.”
She drew her brows together. “Ninja? As in warrior?”
“Ninja as in bike. Motorcycle. Pink.”
He looked so agonized about the color that she couldn’t help laughing.
“It’s not funny,” he growled.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to regain gravitas.
“That woman ruined a three-thousand-dollar custom paint job,” he said bitterly.
“Wow. What did you do to make her so angry?”
“Hell if I know.” He truly seemed perplexed.
Despite her situation, Nat almost got the giggles again. Macho men were alien to her, since her father was a scholar and her brother was a chess champion. They weren’t exactly rough-and-tumble types.
“Did you call the police on this Spray-Paint Sally?”
“Yeah, just like you’re calling them about your apartment.”
“Did you confront her?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Partly because I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of a reaction. Mostly because I was afraid I’d strangle her if I saw her again.”
“Didn’t she deserve strangling?”
“Yeah. But I’m not a guy who roughs up women.” He said this in regretful tones, making her laugh again.
“Eric?”
“Hmm?”
“Worse than your latent teddy-bearism is your white-knight complex.”
“Lady, I am no white knight! When will you get that through your pretty head?”
“Oh, maybe when you do strangle a woman who deserves it, or when you stop coming to my aid. Let’s see, you’ve done it three times now . . . once in the bar, once at my grandmother’s, and now after my apartment got destroyed.”
“Completely accidental,” he assured her.
“Doesn’t matter.”
He was midscoff when she poked him in the chest. “But I’m sorry, Sir Knight,” she said, deadpan, “that you have to ride off to battle on a pink steed. It must be a little hard on the old ego.”
He simmered for a moment. Then he recovered.
“It ain’t my ego that’s hard, sweetheart.” His eyes danced as he grabbed her hand and drew it toward his crotch.
She rolled her eyes and pulled away.
He grinned wickedly. “If you
insist on calling me a knight, then you can call me Sir LottaLance.”
Terrible. Natalie groaned and turned her back on him, but she fell asleep smiling.
When she woke, it was to a delicious aroma. Eric had ordered them dinner from room service.
Fourteen
McDougal woke the next morning with one arm completely dead, since it had been under Natalie for hours. The other arm was still wrapped around her sleeping body, as was one of his legs. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—had he held the girl all night?
Shocking.
Really.
This was fucking weird.
He was not a holder of women. He was not a teddy bear. And he was damn sure no white knight.
He felt so strongly about this that he eased his useless arm out from under Natalie. She stirred sleepily and snuggled back against him, which was half horrifying and half titillating. There was one part of him in apparent rigor mortis this morning, and that was his cock—which unfortunately wasn’t dead. It rested quite comfortably against Natalie’s backside.
Okay. So there were hidden benefits to this teddy-bear stuff. He couldn’t resist one gentle poke. She was asleep, after all. She’d never know.
“Better save your spear for the dragon, St. George,” Natalie said, swatting at his thigh.
Teddy bears. Knights. Now saints, for chrissakes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” Eric muttered.
She rolled over, her breasts moving tantalizingly under her sweater. “No?”
“Okay, so I did.” He shot her an unrepentant grin, which his conscience then immediately knocked off his face.
McDougal. You have a job to do, bud. And you shouldn’t get your honey where you get your money. The sooner you stash her somewhere safe and cut the connection, the better.
He rolled away from her and swung his legs out of bed, staggering to his feet and toward the bathroom. Surely that wasn’t disappointment on her face?
Eric glanced into the mirror and laughed. Clearly not. His hair stuck out in tufts of orange and his eyes were bleary and swollen.
You sexy bastard, Sir LottaLance.
As he went about relieving himself, brushing his teeth, and showering, he made a mental list of what he needed to accomplish today. One, they needed to talk to Natalie’s boss and find out exactly whom they were dealing with. Two, he needed to call Sheila and arrange some kind of safe house for Natalie until this ruckus died down. Three, he needed to get his ass on a plane to Moscow.
Piece of cake, right?
He dried off, wrapped the towel around his waist, and emerged from the bathroom. He strode to the window and threw the curtains open wide. “Let there be light,” he said.
Natalie blinked through her mass of inky, disheveled hair and shielded her eyes with her hand. “Does there have to be quite so much of it?”
“Yes.”
Her small nose wrinkled. “Does there have to be quite so much of it right this second?”
“Uh-huh.” He began to make some coffee in the small hotel-room machine. “Natalie, we’re going to have to go see your boss in order to find out who these creeps are. Clearly they’re Russian, but who do they work for? A smuggling ring? Some kind of Mafia don? And you’ll need to brace yourself: They’ve obviously been back to see him, since he’s the only one who could have sent them to your address. He may not be in very good shape.”
She took a deep breath and folded her arms across her body in an unconscious self-protective gesture. “I know. I’m afraid to go to his apartment. But you’re right. We need to know who we’re dealing with.”
“Will he talk to you?”
“He’d better,” she said ominously. “I’m in danger; you’re in danger; my grandmother’s in danger. He’ll talk or I’ll go to the police and his business will be ruined.”
“He may be more interested in saving his skin than his business. Breakfast?”
“Huh?”
“Do you want to order some breakfast?”
She shook her head. “Just coffee, please.” She slid out from under the covers and looked down at her wrinkled clothes with distaste. “I can’t believe I slept in all this.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I was afraid I’d get slapped if I tried to take it off you.”
The idea of Eric removing her clothes sent a quick spiral of heat through her, but she said nothing.
Even so, he seemed to sense it, and his gaze rendered everything she wore transparent. She disappeared into the bathroom and then into the shower, standing naked under the hot jets of water.
She was still stunned that sweet, vague Luc Ricard would be involved with animals like the people who’d trashed her apartment. How? Why?
Natalie shivered as she climbed out of the shower, wrapped her hair in a towel, and folded herself into the bathrobe provided by the hotel. She belted the robe and stepped out of the bathroom. She hoped—she really did—that Luc would give them some answers.
There was no answer at Luc’s Manhattan apartment when they called up from the reception area. The doorman denied them access to go and check to see whether he was all right.
“Can you send the super?” Natalie begged. “I have reason to believe that he may be in danger.”
After a long, evaluative look at her fresh-scrubbed face, the doorman called the building superintendant and sent him up to check Luc’s apartment.
“Everything’s in order, ma’am,” he reported. “Nobody there.”
Within moments, she and Eric found themselves back out on the street, looking at each other.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, frowning. “Didn’t he tell you to bring the necklace to him?”
She nodded. “And he’s injured. He didn’t want anyone to see him that way. Why isn’t he in bed?”
“Any other place he could be?”
Natalie thought for a moment. “His mother’s? She had a little place in Brooklyn until she died a couple of months ago. I doubt Luc has sold it yet, since her will is probably still tied up in probate, and there’s a brother in Paris.”
“Do you know where the house is?”
“No. But Drake, our receptionist at work, would have the number and address on file.” She pulled out her phone and called the office.
“Luc Ricard Restoration Associates,” sang Drake.
“Hi, it’s me, Natalie.”
“Natalie! Where have you been?”
“You haven’t heard? I got fired yesterday.”
“What?” he shrieked. “When? How? Why?”
“Look, it’s a long story and I’ll have to fill you in another time. What I really need right now is to talk to Luc. Do you have his mother’s address, by any chance? I think he might be there.”
“I don’t know if he’d want me to give out that information.”
“Please, Drake. I’ll say I got it myself, from the database.”
“Oh . . . fine. But you have to give me the dirt later.”
“I will,” she promised. She pulled out a pen and wrote down the address he recited to her. “You’re worth your weight in gold,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t I know it? Now, why won’t anyone pay me that much?”
She left him wondering and hung up. Then she and McDougal made tracks for the nearest subway station.
Luc had installed his mother in a tidy little brick house in Park Slope. Two resin bulldogs guarded the little sidewalk that led up to her front door, and on the porch sat a sobbing Giselle.
“Oh, my God,” said Natalie, rushing up the sidewalk toward her. “Giselle? Are you all right?”
The woman met her with a glance of such pure hatred that it almost knocked her backward. “You,” she spat. “You have ruined everything! Everything!”
“What? Where’s Luc?”
“You bitch!” She rose to her feet and drew back her hand to strike Natalie, nonplussed to find her wrist immobilized by Eric’s grip.
“Where is Luc?” Natalie asked, more urgently this time.
“Go inside and see for yourself.” Giselle’s tone dripped with malevolence. “And you”—she turned to Eric, struggling in his grasp—“you take your filthy paws off me!”
He released her wrist but shot her a warning glance.
Natalie took a step toward the front door, but dread held her in place.
“Go on,” jeered Giselle. “See the way he greets you with open arms.”
Okay. So Luc was still very angry with her. She could handle that. She deserved his anger. Natalie forced her legs the last few steps, quickly knocked on the door, and then turned the knob and pushed it open. “Luc? It’s Natalie.”
She recoiled, didn’t even recognize the scream that tore out of her as her own. Yet the sound filled not only her head, but her whole body. It was a denial of what lay before her, the thing that used to be Luc Ricard.
He lay on his back, arms to either side of him. One was broken, and a piece of white bone had pierced the flesh. His clothing was stained with his own blood, and a puddle of urine had collected under his body after death.
The bones in Luc’s face had been crushed. He’d looked bad when she found him at the brownstone, but he was now unrecognizable, both eyes swollen shut, his nose broken, and his mouth a distorted mess, the jaw broken.
His glasses lay on the floor next to him. Someone had stomped them into bits.
At Natalie’s scream, McDougal sprinted for the front door. The psycho woman out front actually laughed before she crumpled into a heap on the porch again, sobbing.
Inside the house, the badly beaten corpse of a man in his mid-fifties lay spread-eagled on the floor.
Natalie barreled headlong into McDougal’s chest as he stepped in, her face etched with shock and horror. He picked her up bodily and pivoted, going right back outside. An unintelligible keening came from her throat, and he gathered her close. Christ. How much could one woman take in a two-day period?
He swallowed his own bile, set her on her feet, and did his best to comfort her. But his first words were to the other woman, Giselle.
“Nice of you to send Natalie in like that,” he said, tamping down fury. “You’re a real sweetheart.”
She’d stopped crying but still sat on the porch with her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms around them. She wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. “She deserved it.”
Take Me for a Ride Page 9
